Blog & Podcast

We were recently asked the question 'when is the right time to quit your job?' - this was in relation to our journey in property specifically.

Now for everyone the answer will be different, all I could give was our experience.

Back in the Summer of 2013, I, Catherine, was offered voluntary redundancy from my job as a Policy & Strategy Officer at Essex County Council. This was the kick up the butt I needed to get out of a job I hated. I had already invested time and money to get educated in property investing. I was also in a fortunate position that Steve had a well paid job in London as a Corporate Finance Manager and when we did our figures, we worked out I only needed to bring in about £500 per month (not the £1,700 per month I had been) and we’d be fine.

It’s interesting how we live to the money we bring in, rather than looking at the budget we can actually live on. This is a top tip I give to many people who are starting out in Property or Business; work out what you actually need to live on, because then you may be able to free up time, by going part time or living off one wage (if you are a couple) to start your new property or business venture and therefore get to your income goal quicker.

At this time Steve and I only had one single let that brought in about £200 ppm (which I shared with my mum), although I was actively looking for rent to rent deals and possible HMO (Houses of Multiple Occupation) opportunities, plus I had two part-time jobs that could work around my property training and new business.

With this additional time it wasn’t long before we started finding HMO deals and upon selling our first home together, we raised the money to invest in our first HMO (and a JV flip deal). The one HMO brought in a net cashflow of £1000 pcm, so well over the £500 I needed to bring in each month and very soon I decided to give up the part time roles as well.

As soon as I focused time in one area, rather than spreading my focus we found our next HMO and we Deal Packaged that to overseas investors and continued to manage it for them.

This is my second top tip; FOCUS…Follow One Course Until Successful. I had jumped around a lot, learning about different property investment strategies and now had experience in Single Lets, LHA tenants, HMOs, Deal Packaging & Flips, plus Joint Venturing. This has proved very useful now 5 years on, but the advice I give to anyone starting out, is to follow one path and don’t keep chasing shiny pennies! Learn as much as you can, but then stick to one strategy.

The strategy we focus on now is Serviced Accommodation and we absolutely love it, watch out for next month’s article about how we got started in it.

Being posed the question on when I left my job and the advice I’d give others, made me realise that I’d spent 5 long years at Essex County Council working my way up to a pay grade and salary band of £28,500 (before tax) a year. Now, in less than 24 months of running and owning a Serviced Accommodation business, we now bring in an average revenue of £30,000+ each month! ​To get my Council salary I had to work a minimum of 37.5 hours per week, now my Serviced Accommodation business is completely leveraged and I only get involved every now and again, so this takes less than 1 hour of my week!

Knowing what I know now, maybe I would have taken the leap of faith to quit my job sooner, but equally you don’t know what you don’t know and Serviced Accommodation wasn’t a strategy I’d heard about until 2 years ago.

For anyone thinking about whether to quit their job, I’d suggest you think about the following:

What can you actually afford to live on? It might be less than you think.

Can you go part-time? Or live off your partner’s wage?

Make sure you FOCUS your energy in one area, don’t go after too many shiny pennies at once.

Get educated in the strategy you want to focus on, it will get you their much quicker and faster with less mistakes.